How Do Your Back-ups Compare To Mine?

I recently did an informal poll of business owners, asking them about their data back-ups. Sadly, most failed to have adequate protection in place and only one scored an A+.

What really alarmed me is that almost all of them knew of someone who had suffered because of a computer crash without adequate back-ups and still hadn’t taken measures to protect themselves.

Now There's No Excuse To Fall Victim To Data Disaster

With a small investment of time and money, you can be well on your way to having a robust back-up solution that covers you for the most common back-up/recovery scenarios:
Deleted a file that you need to recover
Hard drive crashed
Building destroyed

This article explains what I do to handle all three scenarios. (There are other perfectly valid ways to do back-ups and some of them better suited than mine for specific back-up needs, but this approach I’m sharing is suitable for most small businesses.)

After years of experimentation and research, I’ve finally settled on a set of tools that I really like. I find them to be: reliable, easy to use, affordable and they will run automatically.

But before we get into the tools, let’s talk about…
What Should I Back-Up?
The simple answer is only back-up your data.

You can’t really restore an operating system or installed programs; you're better off doing a fresh install of them. However, you should keep back-up copies (along with the installation serial numbers) of your operating system and installed programs.

Keep back-ups of your installation disks (along with the installation serial numbers) in a trusted, secure off-site location. Check with your license, but most programs and operating systems that I'm aware of allow you to make back-up copies.

To make backing-up reliable and easy, I suggest the following best practices:
create folders on your computer to organize your content into. This makes it easier to find your files and easier to select them for back-up.

If you have a network, create a centralized filing system and have everyone store their data in the same location.
Be sure to back-up your Email folders.
Keep a list of critical passwords stored off-site in a trusted, secure location.
Recommended Back-up Tools

Over the years, I’ve backed-up to different kinds of media: floppy disks, zip drives, CD’s and DVDs. I don’t any more. It simply became too time consuming and confusing having to manually swap disks, worry if the media was getting too full, buying new media, wondering which back-up set was the right one, etc.

Now I’ve got it really streamlined… Undelete. Sometimes, restoring a deleted file from the recycle bin doesn’t work. In these cases, I use a free software called Recuva.
Hard Drive Crash. I use and recommend SyncBackSE. You can purchase it on-line for about $40 and download. With SyncBackSE, I don't have to spend any time manually copying files...I set-it and forget-it.I use it as my primary local back-up and is my first line of defense in case I can’t retrieve a deleted file or because of a scenario such as data corruption or hard drive crash.I back-up my centrally stored files to a physically separate hard drive. SyncBackSE is set to automatically back-up daily in the middle of the night.
Disaster. In addition to my daily local back-up, I also do a daily off-site back-up. For this, I use an on-line tool called Mozy. For about $4/month (way cheaper than buying storage media), it securely backs-up all of my data to an off-site location.This is my last line of defense in case my local back-up has failed for some reason or some sort of disaster has occurred and I need to start completely over. Like my local back-up, it’s set-up to automatically back-up every night.
The bottom-line is that my back-up tools work silently in the background to give me not just one, but two daily back-ups…one in the office and one off-site. My data is securely protected.

Use your notebook. When we go away on vacation, I use SyncBackSE to make a complete back-up on my notebook and store it off-site in a trusted, secure location. With over 300Gig of disk space now on a notebook, it can easily hold the data. If you do this, I recommend you take precautions to secure your notebook such as having a boot level password and encrypting your data.

With a little time invested and the right tools, having a solid back-up strategy in place to protect your business is easily accomplished.
Where To Get Help
If you have any questions about backing-up your data, I’m happy to share what I do to back-up my data with you. If you feel like you'd like the help of a competent techie to help you, then now is the time to find one. Now, there’s no excuse…Right now—while you’re still reading this article—pull out your day planner and schedule a time to get your back-ups in place.

Helpful links to the back-up tools recommended:
Recuva
Free undelete utility.
SyncBackSE
About $40, buy on-line and download.
Mozy
About $4/month, on-line service. There's also a free version available that let's you back-up up to 2Gig of data.
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